BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 915
Page 1
SENATE THIRD READING
SB 915 (Hill)
As Amended June 19, 2014
Majority vote
SENATE VOTE :35-0
EDUCATION 6-0
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|Ayes:|Buchanan, Olsen, | | |
| |Gonzalez, Nazarian, | | |
| |Weber, Williams | | |
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| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Imposes specified requirements on test agencies and
schools when they learn of a complaint or notice of inadequate
or improper test conditions in the administration of the
Advanced Placement (AP) test. Specifically, this bill :
1)Requires the test agency to immediately initiate an
investigation upon learning of a complaint or a notice of
inadequate or improper test conditions relating to an
administration of the AP test.
2)Requires the school in charge of the test site to cooperate
with the test agency's investigation by providing information
requested by the test agency within five business days.
3)Requires the test agency, upon a determination that inadequate
or improper test conditions will prevent it from reporting
valid test scores, to immediately notify the school in charge
of the test site of the decision and requires the school to
notify affected test subject within two business days and
provide all affected test subjects with at least five business
days prior notice of the opportunity to retest.
4)Requires the retest to be administered within 30 calendar days
of the completion of the investigation.
5)Requires test proctors of an administration of an AP test to
create a seating chart, including the seat location of each
test subject, for each AP test administered at the site.
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6)Requires the test agency to provide a seating chart template
for use by each test site.
7)Requires the school in charge of the test site to retain and
preserve each chart created for at least one year after the
administration of the AP test to which that chart applies.
8)Requires the school in charge of the test site to submit the
seating charts to the test agency upon request to assist with
an investigation of a complaint or notice of inadequate or
improper test conditions.
COMMENTS : The AP tests are developed and published by the
College Entrance Examination Board (College Board) and
administered by the Educational Testing Services (ETS), which is
also responsible for test security. Under the College Board's
AP program, high school pupils may enroll in college-level
courses in a variety of academic subject areas. Pupils who
score well enough on an AP test may qualify for college credit.
The exam is administered in May. Schools administering an AP
test must comply with detailed test administration and security
requirements, which include the requirements that pupils taking
the test be seated at least five feet from each other and be
facing the same direction. Pupils are specifically prohibited
from being seated at round tables, and the AP Coordinator's
Manual states that "failure to follow seating requirements could
result in cancellation of exam scores."
In May 2013, 21 different AP tests were administered at Mills
High School in the San Mateo Union High School District. After
completing an investigation of a student's complaint, the ETS
determined that the school violated testing protocols by having
the pupils sit at round tables. Consequently, the scores for
286 pupils who took one or more of 11 tests (for a total of 641
scores) were cancelled and the College Board notified the
affected pupils that they could retake the exams free of charge.
Although ETS initiated its investigation three days after
receiving the complaint, it encountered several delays due to
the district's inability to provide documentation of all of the
seating arrangements. Accordingly, the College Board's decision
to cancel the test scores was not announced until July 8. At
that time, many pupils and their parents felt that the scores
from a re-administration of the test would not be received in
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time for college admission and placement purposes.
Subsequently, the district and a parent group sued the ETS and
College Board for a preliminary injunction that sought the
reinstatement of the cancelled test scores. They argued, in
part, that despite the improper seating arrangements, there is
no evidence that cheating actually occurred. In her order
denying the preliminary injunction, the judge pointed out the
following:
1)The AP Coordinator's Manual specifically prohibits seating
test takers at round tables.
2)The Manual warns in boldface type that "Failure to follow
seating requirements could result in cancellation of exam
scores."
3)Students are warned that "When the College Board determines
that your testing experience did not meet the College Board's
standards for administering exams - even through no fault of
your own - the College Board reserves the right to cancel your
AP Exam score."
4)"Improper seating" is listed as a testing irregularity that
could lead to cancellation of scores.
5)Test takers signify their agreement to the policies and
procedures by so noting on their answer sheets.
This bill addresses the issues raised by this case by
establishing timelines within which both the test agency and the
school district must act in response to allegations of improper
testing procedures. In addition, this bill requires that
seating arrangements be documented, using a seating chart
template provided by the test agency, and requires the documents
be retained for at least one year. According to the author's
office, only a small number of pupils were actually seated at
round tables, and the rest were seated correctly. However, the
inability of the district to show which pupils were sitting
where resulted in the cancellation of a larger number of scores.
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Analysis Prepared by : Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN:
0004144